Kevin Spacey marks Shakespeare world tour in new doc (with video)

Actor works with Sam Mendes on ambitious project

He says he’s not a control freak in real life, which means Kevin Spacey is a far better actor than his award-laden mantel would suggest.

Continuing his tenure as artistic director at The Old Vic theatre in London, as well as preparing for another season of House of Cards, the successful Netflix series about backstabbing in Washington, D.C., Spacey has one more plate to spin this spring and it’s one dear to his heart.

It’s called Now: In the Wings on a World Stage, and it’s a documentary chronicle of Spacey’s exhaustive world tour of Shakespeare’s oft-staged tragedy Richard III — which they redubbed Now after the opening words of the play: “Now is the winter of our discontent …”

Shot in 12 cities over 10 months and 200 shows, with stops in ancient Greek amphitheatres and stage-of-the-art facilities in Beijing, Now isn’t just a portrait of a theatre troupe on tour — it’s an intimate take on the friendship between Spacey and director Sam Mendes.

Mendes, the director behind Spacey’s Oscar-winning turn in American Beauty, picked up the challenge of reinventing a familiar old play and making it feel fresh.

“I think both Sam and I really wanted to know more about the actor in Richard. He’s wonderfully manipulative. He plays with people. He understands the psychology and he uses it to his advantage,” says Spacey.

“Everything about Richard stems from a desire to overcome his physical limitations. He finds ways to work around the obstacles.”

Kevin Spacey in Now

Spacey wears a prosthetic hump and a creepy, apparently David Cronenberg-inspired leg-brace to play the part of the bitter, murderous British king. He says the costume was designed to enhance this idea of bending nature to one’s own will.

“Richard is very much a control freak,” says Spacey. “But I am not. Not really.”

Despite the fact Spacey self-produced the feature-length documentary, and has opted to self-distribute the reel — with a North American release slated for May 15 in Cineplex theatres across the country — he says it’s just a matter of passion and commitment more than any latent desire to master the universe.

“The themes of the piece are timeless,” says Spacey. “It’s the story of a man who wasn’t born with the right assets … to ascend the throne, but he gets there anyway — using any means within his grasp.”

Yet, for all of Richard’s unlikely success, there is one word that everyone uses to describe him in the film: “lonely.”

Ask Spacey if this is a word that also describes him, and he giggles: “You journalists like to make connections, don’t you?”

Yes, especially when they get us closer to the truth.

“But I am not lonely. My life is complete and filled with wonderful people. Of course, everyone gets lonely now and then. But if you’re looking for a connection between the character and me, you could say I never looked like a guy who should be in movies.”

Spacey says he understood Richard’s need to prove himself. “Essentially, you feel those emotions and then you allow Dr. Theatre to do what Dr. Theatre does. And fight for that.“

Kevin Spacey in Now

And make no mistake, says Spacey. Dr. Theatre is different from Mr. Movie, which is why Spacey was hoping to turn Now into an appetizer for a full-length feature shoot of the stage production.

“Theatre is about now, the moment, and that’s up to the actor. Film is a director’s medium,” says Spacey.

However, the financing for the feature never came through, which means the only record of Spacey’s precedent-setting Shakespeare show is the backstage footage gleaned in Now, shot largely by first-time filmmaker and longtime Spacey friend Jeremy Whelehan.

“He had never shot a movie before,” says Spacey. “But when I looked at the raw footage, I saw how much he captured that I wasn’t even aware of.”

Spacey says the lingering memory of the Now tour will be physical exhaustion, but also the thrill of the process and being on tour with a whole company.

“Films rarely give you time to rehearse with the other actors, but it’s so important. Sam knew that. We had two weeks of rehearsal on American Beauty, along with Alan Ball, and he was a playwright, too. So we all knew where we were before we even got on set.”

Kevin Spacey in Now

Spacey says Mendes made sure the theatricality of the production was at the forefront of Now as well, which saved Spacey from the words that truly make him irritable: “We tested it in Burbank, and the numbers are through the roof!”

Spacey says he’ll do just about anything to evade such a proclamation, or put his creative touch on anything that could suffer the blunt-force trauma of a focus group.

Spacey says he is always ready to defend the art, which suggests even more good things for his next theatrical undertaking: An Old Vic production of Clarence Darrow, a biographical drama about the noted U.S. attorney known for the Scopes Trial, as well as defending child killers Leopold and Loeb.

“It’s a play in the round. I’ve never done that before,” he says. “It’s worthy of a fist pump.”

Now will play in 60 Cineplex locations across Canada beginning Thursday. The film is also available for download at nowthefilm.com.